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Apple Says It Doesn't Know Why iTunes Users Are Losing Their Music Files (theverge.com)
Earlier this month, an Apple Music user James Pinkstone claimed that the online music streaming service deleted 122GB of music from his library for no apparent reason. Several Slashdot readers noted they had also faced a similar issue or knew someone who had. The iPhone maker has now acknowledged a bug in iTunes that is apparently causing the glitch, however, it adds that it doesn't really know why "some" users are facing this issue. The Verge reports: The company confirmed that "in an extremely small number of cases, users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission." However, Apple was unable to reproduce the bug, indicating it doesn't really know what's going on here. The company adds: We're taking these reports seriously as we know how important music is to our customers and our teams are focused on identifying the cause. We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we're releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards. If a user experiences this issue they should contact AppleCare.
They're really claiming that they don't know why this is happening?
Note to iTunes software engineers: grep through your code and find all calls to delete(). Investigate the code in those areas. If you can't add some basic debug code - or if you're unsure of what "grep" is - maybe you should consider a move to management.
That's why you'll want 24-bit for a studio master, because it gives you more room to adjust the individual samples and splice audio streams without hearing any kind of pop or static when it's re-sampled back to 16-bit. However going above 44khz still remains pointless, even for that purpose.
Here's Nyquist sampling theorem 101:
Strictly speaking, the theorem only applies to a class of mathematical functions having a Fourier transform that is zero outside of a finite region of frequencies. Intuitively we expect that when one reduces a continuous function to a discrete sequence and interpolates back to a continuous function, the fidelity of the result depends on the density (or sample rate) of the original samples. The sampling theorem introduces the concept of a sample rate that is sufficient for perfect fidelity for the class of functions that are bandlimited to a given bandwidth, such that no actual information is lost in the sampling process. It expresses the sufficient sample rate in terms of the bandwidth for the class of functions. The theorem also leads to a formula for perfectly reconstructing the original continuous-time function from the samples.
Even considering the editing example, if you were to splice two audio streams together, or even mix or transform them, the only reason you'd need more than 44khz is if for some reason you MUST go above 22khz because the intended listener can hear above that range, like say for example you wanted to create a lullaby for your dog, who can hear higher than that. In which case, you'd want to keep it at above 44khz even with the final (mass distributed) copy. However if humans are your intended listening target, there's never a reason to go above that, even for the purposes of mastering.
Or to put it another way, going above 44khz is every bit as silly as using wooden knobs and gold plated Ethernet cables in order to improve audio quality.
iTunes is a dumpster fire of astronomical proportions, but at some point the user has to take some responsibility for not entrusting valuable data to a flaky consumer-grade application. This sounds like a case where the wrong tool was used for the job.
That's cute. When you're a DJ, 44khz isn't enough. 16 bits is fine. Do you know why? Should I bother telling you?
It has to do with that Fourier transform thing. When you have two different tracks that are in different keys and have different tempos, you need more samples than 44khz to do the pitch and tempo shifting to match the two tracks.
Keep feeling smug, though. Clearly I must be wrong.
Just like they didnt know why 'some of users laptops GPU died' for almost 4 years before admitting fault and reluctantly being forced to a recall.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
He probably didn't. iTunes scans your computer for music files and automatically "adds" them to your iTunes library. And then deletes them for you when it "makes them available from Apple Music."
Except it doesn't move them to the iTunes library - it copies them. So unless you delete the originals yourself, you've got another copy of the file... but I can imagine a lot of people would do exactly that, because why would you want two copies on your computer?
I am not really sure how much I agree or disagree with the gp post. People do need to take some responsibility, and we tech-heads know better than most what can go wrong with tech. But most people aren't like us; and all of these companies sell their hardware and software with the message that it'll magically take care of everything for you - Apple perhaps more than most (it "just works"), although Google and Microsoft are certainly not hubris-free.
#DeleteChrome